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The Backstory

“I don’t know that people can handle a story as raw as mine,” he told me on the phone.

“Listen,” I told him back, “you just tell your story as it is. Real people don’t want the shined up version with a neat little bow on top. How else are they going to know how far God’s love and grace reaches?”

My Christian believing friends…and my hope believing friends…

…why aren’t we telling our stories? People who have gone through tragedy and loss need to know they are not alone. I realize it takes time to understand our stories and perhaps find ourselves ready to tell them, but that time is coming. God is preparing you. And soon your beautiful story will sneak out to the end of your tongue and get a healthy dose of sunlight. Then it will stretch its legs, throw its arms wide open and swan dive into someone else’s darkness, lighting up their world and changing their story forever – changing it…for GOOD.

I’ve so often heard people say, “I want to serve God,” or “I want to serve mankind, but I don’t really know what I have to offer.” Your story will always be your offering. Talents wear out. Musician’s fingers will get gnarled in their old age and they will struggle to finely tune their music the way they used to. Business and technology will at some point leave you behind and you’ll watch as all of those younger generations run off ahead of you. Your beauty will fade (or it should), and your influence, professionally, will dwindle while a large part of who you are becomes irrelevant as the years roll on. And in the end, all you will be left with, is what? Yep.

You will always have your story. And the older you get, the more capable you’ll be of telling it, IF you know it. There is nothing more beautiful than a spotted up old lady with suitcase skin and gumballed knuckles telling her story of redemption to those who need to know they can make something of themselves despite the terror that still lives in their hearts.

I attended a worship concert last night, given by a very popular worship leader named Matt Redman. He has penned beautifully contrasting lyrics in his songs and you can simply feel the backstory in his words – words like, “Blessed be Your name when the sun’s shining down on me, when the world’s all as it should be….and blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering, though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be Your name.” We sang those words out to the top of our lungs, but I’ll be honest – I wasn’t really feeling it. It had been a rough day and I was simply doing the best I could.

But then came the backstory.

He quieted all of us down. He stopped singing and told us a story – his story. He told us that he knew what it was like to hurt. He told us he had written those contrasting lyrics, which ebbed and flowed from pain to joy, because his wife had miscarried four of his children. He told us that his dad had taken his own life when he was seven years old and that shortly after, he was sexually abused by a predator.

And THIS was the moment I felt heaven flood the place with light. According to statistics, in a crowd of nearly twelve hundred people, Matt Redman had just told between two and three hundred of us that we were not alone. His story did a swan dive right into our hearts and promised us hope. He had shown us how to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God.

“But I don’t have a story.” Yes, I know. I’ve heard it so many times. But you see, that’s just not true. You do have a story. We all do. Thinking you don’t have a story only means that you don’t know what it is yet, and that’s okay. But the truth is, we all need saving. We all need rescued. We all have a story.

Some of you are on the brink of going there – you’re nearly ready to talk about it…I can feel it. Be safe when you do. Make sure you choose the right person to begin the journey. Someone safe. (Not always family…sometimes a therapist or close friend is best. Someone who has already told you their story is a great way to gauge a safe person.) And as you move forward, know that you will be joining those brave and broken souls who have found freedom and calling waiting for them…in the telling.

A great teacher named Beth Moore says, “Every bit of what has come behind us in our brokenness has use in the kingdom.” Dan Allender, a world-renowned counselor and author says, “Out of our wounds, from the core ache within us, comes our calling.” So tell your story. To someone. To me. To a sheet of paper. Write it down and send it off to a friend. But tell it. It’s time someone got the backstory.

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So true! Everyone does have a story and each is uniquely beautiful. I’ve found in telling my own story some are prepared to recieve and accept it and others are not. It’s important that we also learn how to recieve others stories with comfort. It’s been those who have recieved my story well that have been the greatest source of healing for me. In telling my own story, I have learned to be a better listener so I ditto you – the backstory is often the most important story. It’s what has made us all who we are, good and bad. 🙂

Caregiving, traveling, working and staying busy keeps me from sharing my story. It has been told period. No sense in keep rehashing the past – what happened – happened – let it go. Isolating, withdrawing and keeping people at a safe distance is a way of staying superficial – without having to get real just seems to work for me. Then all of the sudden – it is time for a spiritual growth campaign at church – yikes! Oh well, the first week I have to be absent due to being out of town – legitimately. Week 2 – I will just go and check these people out – at this point – only 4 more weeks to go! The topic tonight “your earthly father” – on week 2??? Seriously??? What happened to “share with the group about your first car” or “what is the destination for your dream vacation?” No exit stage left or right – only the hot tears and lump in my throat. I managed to squeek out the very shortest version of “I had two of them – neither of them won any Father of the Year awards”. Basically, end of story! Wrong – next question – “so…based on that answer, how do you view God?” Who wrote these icebreakers? Mark the statement about God that you want to experience. How about “he is sorry that you were hurt”? That question has never been answered for me. Years of regurgitating, therapy and asking God that same question yielded more questions than answers. The answer that was revealed tonight was Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” My homework assignment for this week is to write this verse, read it every day and let the verse be the lens by which you live your week. Live it. Follow it. Oh boy, I can hardly wait till week 3!

Gwendolyn – you are awesome! I appreciate your honesty, your raw edge, and your courage to keep searching for answers, and not to simply accept a bumper sticker faith in God (although there are some good ones.) I’ve had similar conversations with God and certainly haven’t gotten all the questions answered, but have found that I wasn’t always after the answers like I thought I was…and what answer would suffice really for those dark things that happened? But then I’d walk away and he’d just do something so wonderful in my life (sometimes so terribly personal that I’d feel like I should look over my shoulder) and I’d find myself forgiving him again. We have a candid relationship, that much is sure. And that kind of brutal honesty with Him (about all the frustrations and hurts, to put it mildly) is what has kept me continually letting him have access to my heart. I believe, though I have not always, that he is good.

Hang on to that verse. Out of all the phrases in that book, the one you picked, was the one I picked. 🙂 “He wants you to know that he is sorry you were hurt.” …close to the brokenhearted…yes, I believe he is.

I recommend Donald Miller’s Storyline Conference. It is also possible to buy his lectures on CD and his workbook, if you can’t attend a conference. You can find info about the conferences and the materials at http://www.storyline.com. It is soul searching, insightful, and God centered.